when jazzed  when things go sideways

                                                                    its usually just a matter a figure of speech

but this afternoon his computer screen flirted with him  winked   went black   and when she returned she was sideways

her top slipped left her bottom right

                                                               and in the aftermath he was a little disappointed

things didnt go pretzel

its middle tortured

the image gone elastic or rubber

likely tho its software or hardware architecture wouldnt allow such torment and let it off easy

it made him think of the war porn

inciting the country 

                                or at least those who looked

GIs snapping on-the-ground horror in real-time and transmitting it back to the States

if anyone thought smartphones werent the bane of commerce and business and employers inside the States  sapping valuable time and resources and productivity

twentysomethings are twentysomethings    even if they are deployed overseas  in-country  

sharing  --  “they wouldnt believe it if I told them so”  --  human remains scattered like confetti in the shape of Lincolns profile on the ruin of a blasted abode wall  --  “Comon  whod believe that if they didnt see it for themselves with their own eyes”  --  behind them a shadow on the ground near the foot of the wall a second GI waving a tarp or a scrap of cardboard to mitigate the flies  

                                                   snapchatting gore until Lincolns face is erased by feasting flies

insects prospered and grew fat in the Middle East

his singular moment his sudden awareness of war porn  before it had its name  came as he walked past Sarges workspace

 

curiously Sarge had his back to the aisle

seemed unlike a disabled veteran to him   his back exposed

his laptop laid on the desk return to the right of the companys computer

Sarge was enthralled

over Sarges shoulder he saw on the screen a man who was sliced cleanly through like a paper doll from the top of his right shoulder neatly down to his left hip  his head thrown back  mouth open  his eyes spread wide as if he was startled  thats all there was of him  there was no blood

Sarge must have felt his presence and turned:  We got us a dead enemy 

he asked Sarge how he could possibly be sure the dead man was the enemy

Sarge replied:  If he wasnt the enemy he wouldnt be dead

his reply    pure  simple

he excused himself and walked over to the watercooler

 

he drank more than a few paper cones filled with cold water before he crushed it and tossed it into the waste basket

the bitter bile stuck
                                  it wouldnt come off his tongue

     

1537,  Monday,  30  11. 15

2339,  Twosday,  1  12. 15

he paused   curiously arrested  aroused    by the heart of the persimmon he sliced into

the paring knife exposed its dark star  asterisk  which somehow  suddenly  was relevant this morning

he put the slice into his mouth  chewed it thoughtfully  enjoyed its slight gritty bitter skin  its cool silken flesh  then smacking his lips the pulp still in his mouth he took a sip of black coffee and continued   wondering    why     alertly

then as the swirl of the mixture found his gullet  swallowing     a cleaved portion of his sleeps dreaming slipped amid his acute wondering

keen shards colored persimmon and lemon yellow arced away from his shadowy persona  lingered in his eyes like sharp tracers splitting the night 

bent on chasing them he stumbled  they fled ahead of him easily   tho finding his feet he pursued

they outpaced his leaden legs and took him through verdigris Old World streets lighted by flickering gaslight
flatstone and crumbling brick facades statuary cobblestones and pavers divvied at their centres by gutters
where sluice and oils throbbed

overhead the ether descended palpably onto his shoulders like a black shadow or garment  vestment or cape

then on top this odd waking reverie washed an odder sense
                                                                                                   a nausea of nepotism

the shards penetrated and lighted up occasional persons who either stood on the street sat on stone benches before brilliantly carved fountains or gathered in squares where wood-spoked market carts rested on their long handles or leaned fixed and level on crude horses

the faces of the lighted people were familiar to him  faces worn in his past and many belonging to those who had died  yet despite their shocking dreamed presence  still  a hiss  a susurration tinged his hearing  a slick voice at his ears whispered  nepotism

then again
 

                   nepotism
                                          and an acrid smell  smouldering charred remains  embers flashing like evil eyes staring out from edges of haunted darker forests  coal blacker than the horizon etching them

nepotism  wasnt without anything or anyone at your back 

it latent  abysmal  exposed

its faces garish  Toulouse-Lautrec or Matisse painted  ghoulish  glowing skulls  rays bugging from their eye sockets
their illumined heads cumbersome Jack-o-Lanterns 

                                                                                     a faint recognition grows in him    a trembling wash        an echo

all nepotism ever afforded him were trite adages his deceased uncle shared with him  revealed years ago

It is not what you know  but rather who you know

                                                                                     he laughed sardonically through his fast easygoing toothy smile
And pushing up tight on its behind  planned obsolescence  You should appreciate there will be fewer and fewer craftsmen because people  no  consumers  do not demand them  And not demanding them or holding a line against declining quality and manufacturing  they deserve the shabbiness  its cheap and shoddy products

he died as the slovenly and the shabby and the nepotistic fingerings tipped the scales to the bereft of anyone who couldnt afford  Luxury  in the truest sense of the word

in the faces of the Jack-o-Lanterns he began to recognise a few he knew whose lives would be entirely safe and secure

he recognised  he had to admit  those of them who allowed him small ports during the storms of his life  modest nepotism which provided him benefit and solace as he gambled on himself and moved from state to state eluding careers and suits leather shoes homes and tedious friendships

he knew a lot  he was street smart  book smart  but it seemed it was never what he knew that he could make pay off

rather he ended up playing off of those he met and who somehow inveighed on his behalf and cracked tightshut doors just enough for him to recognise a hint of light bleeding out from behind it  from inside  and he stomped it open with the sole of his boot

like shucking an oyster  then gobbling up its odd elastic flesh  sucking its briny liquor

he never cared much for the term nepotism  never enough to read up on its root or etymology

he was wary of its wider implications and fulminations  its slick elitism  how it worked that someone less was embraced solely by birthright  which had to be recognised as nothing more than an obvious crapshoot  nepotism  a suckling that went on and on and on appalling him  akin to those seven eight year olds who breastfed at their mothers teats  nuzzling  nursing  having their second set of teeth

he saw it as queer to the Natural World  a mammalian offspring spending years at the tit  it seemed a codification  declaration  of simpering weaklings  of mothering gone recklessly off the rails
 

and those who defied their fortunes condemning others for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps  glaring harshly down on the less fortunate whose teats were ripped from their O-shaped lips through no fault of their own

he could suppose they believed that their birthright

  
 

      though nothing could thwart his unblinking wonderment
                                                                                                         how had they not spat out the nipples themselves
how they were never to stand on their own hind legs

 

bipedal fallacies


 

nothing more
         

1020 and 1342,  Monday, 30  11. 15
1444,  Twosday,  1  12. 15